stylos

Stylos is the blog of Jeff Riddle, a Reformed Baptist Pastor and Church Planter in Charlottesville, Virginia. The title "Stylos" is the Greek word for pillar. In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul urges his readers to consider "how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar (stylos) and ground of the truth."

Monday, March 02, 2015

Image: The "Arnolfini Portrait" (1434) by Jan van Eyck. Among the many visual symbols in this classic portrait of a husband and his wife is the dog, a symbol of fidelity.

I recently preached on David’s keeping of his covenant to Jonathan by extending kindness
to Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9. In the
applications, I noted that one thing this passage teaches is the importance of
keeping one’s covenant commitments, whether the foundational covenant commitment
to Christ, the commitment to covenant membership in a local church, or the
covenant commitment to Christian marriage.

I then
returned to give some specific examples of faithfulness to the covenant of
marriage. This was particularly on my
mind as I had recently read the memoir of a liberal mainline theologian in which
he recounted his separation, divorce, and remarriage after a difficult first marriage
to a woman who suffered with mental illness. In contrast to this
man’s experience, I thought of the examples of at least three Christian men in
church history who remained faithfully married to wives who suffered from mental illness:

Example 1:
The Scottish minister Thomas Boston (1676-1732) was married for thirty
two years to Catherine Brown, whom one biographer described as falling “under a
mysterious and racking disorder of the intellect” (Biographical Introduction, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State, p.
15). She apparently became mentally unstable
just weeks after their marriage, tried to take her life on several occasions, and
spent ten years confined to her bed with apparent schizophrenia. Nevertheless, Boston could describe his
troubled wife as “a woman of great worth, whom I passionately loved, and
inwardly honoured; a stately, beautiful, and comely personage, truly pious, and
fearing the Lord … patient in our common tribulations, and under her personal
distresses” (as quoted in Meet the
Puritans, p. 657).

Example 2: The Baptist minister Andrew Fuller (1754-1815)
wrote in his diary on July 25, 1792, “O my God, my soul is cast down within
me! The affliction in my family seems
too heavy for me! O Lord, I am
oppressed, undertake for me! My thoughts
are broken off, and all my prospects seem to be perished!” (Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 59). His lament was for his wife in
particular. While expecting a child, she
began to suffer with bouts of mental distress.
Perhaps this was brought on by the hardship of having a few years
earlier lost their oldest daughter to the measles at age six. Fuller’s wife was seized with what he
described as “hysterical affections” and a “deranged” mind (p. 55). She went through some times when she was
lucid but at other times she could not recognize Fuller as her husband (she
called him an “imposter”) or her children and would try to escape from their
home. On August 23, 1792 she gave birth
to a healthy daughter, but she died soon after the delivery. Through it all Fuller had stood by his wife
faithfully.

Example 3:James Fraser (d. in 1769 in his 69th
year of life after 44 years of ministry) was a minister in the Northern Scotland
region of Ross-Shire. His story is told
in the book The Days of the Fathers in Ross-Shire (Northern
Chronicle, 1927). Fraser suffered with an unhappy marriage to a woman who likely had
some form of mental or social disorder, no doubt compounded by her own
sinfulness.The account of Fraser's
unfortunate marriage begins, “A cold, unfeeling, bold, unheeding worldly
woman was his wife.” It continues, “Never did her godly husband sit down to a
comfortable meal in his own house, and often would he have fainted for sheer
want of needful sustenance but for the considerate kindness of some of his
parishioners.” His friends would hide food near his home so that he would not
starve to death! On long and cold winter evenings his wife denied
him a fire in his study. "Compelled to walk in order to keep
himself warm, and accustomed to do so when preparing for the pulpit, he always
kept his hands before him as feelers in the dark, to warn him of his approaching
the wall at either end of the room. In this way he actually wore a hole
through the plaster at each end of his accustomed beat...."

The story is also told how Fraser once went alone to a
Presbytery dinner with his fellow ministers. One liberal minister suggested
that they raise a toast to the health of their wives and winking at his
companions he asked Fraser, “You, of course, will cordially join in drinking to
this toast.” Fraser responded, “So I will and so I ought…for mine is a better
wife to me than any of yours have been to you.” “How so?” they all exclaimed.
“She has sent me," was the reply, “seven times a day to my knees when I
would not otherwise have gone, and that is more than any of you can say of
yours.”

Saturday, February 28, 2015

One of the nice things about living in Charlottesville is the access to good used bookstores. I walked into Heartwood Books on UVA's Corner yesterday to peruse the religion section and found this copy of the 20th edition (1950) of Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece. I purchased it for $7.50. It is a nice, relatively clean copy.

Eberhard Nestle (1851-1913) first published his Novum Testamentum Graece in 1898. His original work was based on comparison of the three most significant printed editions of the modern critical Greek New Testament of the nineteenth century (Tichendorf; Westcott/Hort; and Weymouth). The Weymouth was replaced by the edition of B. Weiss in 1901. Where any two of these agreed against a third, Nestle followed the majority. According to a pamphlet published by the German Bible Society: "Nestle's edition, due to its wide distribution, ultimately displaced the 'Textus Receptus', which among scholars had already long become obsolete, in churches and schools" (Textual Research on the Bible [2008]: p. 19).

After Eberhard Nestle's death, his son Erwin Nestle (1883-1972) continued editing his father's work. With the 13th edition (1927), Erwin Nestle added to the work a critical apparatus, which increasingly expanded in future editions. In 1952 Kurt Aland (1915-1994) became co-editor of the work and with the 25th edition (1963) it became known as the "Nestle-Aland" Greek New Testament. Later editions were based not merely on printed editions (as the early editions had been) but on direct comparison to original Biblical manuscripts. The 26th edition of the N-A (1979) brought the text into agreement for the first time with the modern critical Greek text of the United Bible Societies (3rd edition). The 28th edition of the N-A (2012) is now the standard modern-critical text of academic scholarship.

Image: Here is the opening to Romans. Notice the small printed text Biblical text (a hallmark of the Nestle-Aland NT) but also the wide surrounding margins.

Image: I found it interesting that the table of contents lists Hebrews as the last of the "Epistolai Paulou (Pauline epistles)", though the line is inset, and not as part of the "Epistolai Katholikai (Catholic Epistles)."

In 2 Samuel 9 we learn that David kept his covenant bond to
the house of Jonathan by extending mercy and compassion to Mephibosheth, the
lame son of Jonathan (cf. 1 Samuel 20:14-15; 2 Samuel 4:4). Though it was customary in David’s day for a
new king to see all the descendents of the previous monarch as his enemies (cf.
2 Kings 10:1-9; 11:1), David unexpectedly extended kindess (hesed, covenant mercy) to Mephibosheth.

One things we can learn from 2 Samuel 9 is the importance of
keeping one’s covenant promises, whether they be the foundational covenant
commitment to Christ, the covenant commitment of marriage, or the covenant
commitment of church membership.

On a deeper level, we learn something in 2 Samuel 9 about the
Lord’s dealings with us. We are
spiritually lame men and women. We, as a
race, were once whole but in our infancy, through the fall, we lost all
spiritually ability. We even became the
enemies of Christ. But the Lord sought us; he then sent forth his son in the fullness of time for us; and he has supplied us through Christ with everything
we need for salvation and true godliness.

Dale Ralph Davis closes his exposition of 2 Samuel 9 with
these words:

The first principle for grappling
with the marvel of God’s love is to realize that he has no business—in a
sense—loving whom he loves. What I’m
saying is that we are the Lord’s Mephibosheths, and there is absolutely no
reason why we should be eating continually at the king’s table. And if we have
any sense, we won’t be able to understand it either (2 Samuel, p. 106).

Perhaps the best New Testament passage to place alongside 2
Samuel 9 is this one from Paul:

Romans 5:8 But God commendeth
his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the
death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

One of the oddities of codex Vaticanus is the textual layout
for the ending of Mark. The NT in Vaticanus is
written in three columns. Generally, if
the text of a particular book ends in one column, the text of the next book
begins in the very next column. So, if
the text of one book ends in column one, the text of the next book begins in
column two.

The Gospel of Mark in Vaticanus famously ends, of course, at
Mark 6:8. It is one of only three extant ancient Greek mss. which end Mark at 16:8 (the others being codices Sinaiticus and 304). The odd
things is that Mark ends in the middle of column two but column three is left
blank, and the text of Luke does not begin until column one of the next
page. This perhaps indicates that the
scribe was confused or concerned about the abbreviated ending or even intended
to add the Longer Ending, though it is questionable as to whether Mark 16:9-20 would
fit within the remainder of column 2 and in the blank column three. Perhaps, however, he intended to continue the
text in column one of the next page, where Luke now begins.

Jakob Van Bruggen made this observation about the ending of Mark:

“There are only three known Greek manuscripts that end at
16:8, and one of them has a large open space after verse 8. All the remaining Greek manuscripts contain
verses 9-20 after Mark 16:1-8, and most of them do not have a single note or
insertion of other data. Mark 16:1-20
has both the authority of the Majority Text, as well as the authority of oldest
text. If it still remains uncertain
whether Mark 16:9-20 is well attested textually, then very little of any of the
text of the New Testament is well attested" (The Future of the Bible [Thomas Nelson, 1978]: p. 131).

The pictures below, drawn from the online Vaticanus, allow us
to compare the endings of the four Gospels in codex Vaticanus and note how the ending
of Mark presents an anomalous pattern:

Image: Ending of Matthew in column two; beginning of Mark in column three.

Image: Ending of Mark in column two; column three blank.

Image: Ending of Luke in column two; beginning of John in column three.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Image: Screenshot of a closeup of 1 John 5:7-8, sans the CJ, in Vaticanus.

Image: Whole view of page from I John in Vaticanus. The preceding image above is a close-up of the bottom of the middle column which contains 1 John 5:7-8.

Image: The last page of Hebrews in Vaticanus from the original copyist, ending at Hebrews 9:14a.

Image: This is the first page of Hebrews in Vaticanus in the later hand, starting at Hebrews 9:14b.

Image: Screenshot of close-up of beginning of Revelation in Vaticanus, written in later hand. Compare and contrast with close-up of 1 John 5:7-8 in archaic hand above.

Note: Here’s a follow up to the earlier post I did
on the books in the Old Testament in Codex Vaticanus (now available online). Here is the list of New
Testament books in Vaticanus:

Matthew

Mark

Luke

John

Acts

James

1 Peter

2 Peter

1 John

2 John

3 John

Jude

Romans

1
Corinthians

2
Corinthians

Galatians

Ephesians

Philippians

Colossians

1
Thessalonians

2
Thessalonians

Hebrews

Revelation

Observations:

1. The Gospels and
Acts appear in what becomes the standard order.

2. Next are the
General Epistles, beginning with James.

3. Next come the
Pauline epistles, with the Pastoral epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus) and
Philemon omitted (Did they appear after Hebrews in the original
manuscript? See below).

4. Hebrews comes after
2 Thessalonians, which implies it is considered among the Pauline epistles.

5. The original text of
Vaticanus ends at Hebrews 9:14a. The
remainder of Hebrews (9:14b—13:25) and Revelation is written in a distinctly
different hand (which apparently dates to c. fifteenth century) and was added
at a later time.

SH was the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at
Duke University in Durham, NC. He wrote
this memoir (he is keen to point out that it is not an autobiography, because
it is not strictly chronological account of his life) in 2010 when he was age
70. He has since retired from Duke but
continues to teach and speak. SH is one
of the best known modern American academic theologians. In 2001 Time
Magazine named him the “best theologian in America” (and that was back when
people were still reading the print version of Time!).

SH’s memoir is compelling on a personal level, particularly
as he describes a very difficult first marriage that he had to a woman named
Anne who suffered from mental illness.
It also provides some interesting insights into what it’s like to be a
mainline Protestant theologian in this generation.

First: A sketch of Hauerwas’ life as presented in
his memoir:

SH was born and raised in Pleasant Mound, Texas and was
deeply involved from childhood in the Pleasant Mound Methodist Church where his
parents were both active members. He was
an only child. The memoir’s title refers
to the fact that SH’s mother told him later in his life that before he was born
she had made a pact with God that if she was given a son, she would dedicate
him to the Lord’s service. SH seems to
have had a rather difficult relationship with his mother who was an incessant
talker and was needy for attention. He has
much admiration, on the other hand, for this father who was a quiet man who
worked as a brick-layer craftsman and who taught his son, to some degree, this
skill. It was from this experience that
SH said he learned, in particular, a strong work ethic. This is how he produced so much academic
writing. He worked hard.

SH somewhat provocatively states that he was never saved
while at Pleasant Mound UMC (that is, he never responded to an evangelistic
altar call). But he did as a teen commit
himself to full-time Christian service.
He went to a small Christian school, Southwestern University in
Georgetown, Texas where he was influenced by a Duke grad named John Score. It was while in college that SH became more
aware of his blue-collar background. He
was the first in his family to go to college.
He obviously had some strong academic and intellectual abilities and was
encouraged to go to Yale Divinity School in New Haven, CT.

In 1962 at age 22 he went to Yale still not really sure he
was a Christian and without having been part of a church during his college
days. H. Richard Niebuhr and Roland
Bainton had just retired but the school had a number of distinguished liberal
and mainline Protestant scholars under whose influence SH came. These
included: George Lindbeck (though he
never had a course with him), Hans Frei (with whom he took Christology),
Brevard Childs and Walter Zimmerli (OT), Paul Meyer (NT), James Gustafson
(ethics), etc. Intellectually, SH came under the influence,
through their writings, of the great Neo-Orthodox theologian Karl Barth and the
existentialism of Soren Kierkegaard. There is no mention of his contact with
classical or Reformed theology. He was
surprised to learn that Divinity students had to do some practical ministry and
he worked in a local church teaching Sunday School—though still not sure he
could call himself a Christian!

At the end of his first semester he married Anne Harley, whom
he had met in college. Soon after having
their first and only son, Adam, in 1968 according to SH, he sadly began to
notice increasingly erratic behavior from Anne—particularly expressed in rage
and frustration with him—which was a harbinger of severe mental and emotional
problems that were to come.

After completing his master’s degree, he went on to work on
his doctoral degree also at Yale working under Gustafson in theological ethics,
completing his dissertation which was published in 1975 as Character and the Christian Life.

After graduate school in 1969 SH began his teaching career at
a small Lutheran College named Augustana in Rock Island, Illinois. Though he enjoyed teaching, he ran into some
problems in faculty meetings, by exhibiting what he admits was a cocky and
brass style, exhibited in particular by
criticizing the school for not hiring minority faculty members. He was told
that his teaching contract would not be renewed.

He was, however, offered a position at the University of
Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. Though it was a Roman Catholic school its
religious department was progressive hiring Protestants and even a Jewish
professor. SH would be at Notre Dame for
14 years, and it was here that his academic career would really begin to blossom. He
began to write and to publish, including in the field of medical ethics,
especially on issues related to the mentally handicapped. It was while at Notre Dame that SH came into
contact with the eccentric Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder who taught at nearby Goshen College and then
eventually alongside SH at Notre Dame itself.
SH will list JHY as the theologian who most influences his
thinking. In particular, he embraces a
pacifist position with regard to war and violence.

It is while at Notre Dame that the troubles at home become
intense. Anne experiences her first
psychotic break, is committed for a short time to a psych ward, and is placed
on lithium.

The crisis at home sends SH looking for a church. He regularly attends and participates in mass
at a Roman Catholic chapel at Notre Dame and is surprised to learn—despite the
fact that he has a divinity degree and is a theology professor—that
non-Catholics are not welcomed to take the Eucharist in a Catholic service. He eventually becomes involved, with Adam
(Anne does not attend with them and is intensely antagonistic toward religion),
at the small, Broadway Methodist Church in South Bend, where the divorced
pastor does at least instilled in SH some sense of churchmanship.

Changes eventually come to Notre Dame with a new Department
Chairman, Richard McBrien, who, though he is a progressive Catholic, wants the
department to be more conscientiously Catholic.
This rubs SH the wrong way and he begins looking for an exit. He finds one in a prestigious appointment to
the divinity school at Duke University in Durham, NC in 1983.

Duke by historic connections is a Methodist church, so SH was
poised to become one of the leading Methodist theologians. He came to Duke about the same time as Will
Willimon came to be the University chaplain.
The two of them collaborated on several books including one called Resident Aliens (1989) which made a
particular splash among mainline Protestants by redefining the role of the
mainline church in society in light of their more marginalized position and
loss of influence. Some of his fellow
liberal theologians, like his former mentor Gustafson, as well as Jeffrey Stout
of Princeton and others, accused him of becoming a sectarian and “tribalist.”

Soon after the move to Durham, Anne had yet another very
severe breakdown and had to be hospitalized.
As his academic and professional career rose his personal life
crumbled. Soon after his son left for
college, Anne left him and drove back to South Bend where she pursued one of
SH’s former colleagues with whom she fantasized she had a relationship (which
was non-existent in reality). SH got a
legal separation agreement from Anne. When
he later gets a call from Anne’s brother reporting that Anne has tried to
commit suicide by stabbing herself in the chest with a knife, he answers, “I am
not coming” (p. 203). He eventually divorced her, though he says
he insisted that he pay her a generous alimony.

Before the divorce and even before the separation agreement,
SH begins dating Paula Gilbert the Director of Admissions at the Divinity
School, more than ten years his junior, and an ordained Methodist minister. Here is a line penned by SH after describing
his first date with Paula which you would only read in the memoir of a liberal
theologian: “Of course, I was still
officially married. I realized that
dating Paula might offend some people in the divinity school” (p. 202).

Sometime after their divorce, Anne would die of congestive
heart failure, isolated and alone in her late 50s in her apartment in South
Bend. In the meantime, SH had married
Paula Gilbertson in 1989 and begun a new life.
SH was increasingly in demand as an author and speaker, particularly in
mainline, liberal Protestant circles, though he was known for his critiques and
criticisms of liberal mainline church life (along the lines of Resident Aliens). He was invited to give various prestigious
lectureships many of which became books, including the 2001 Gifford Lectures at
the University of St. Andrews in Scotland on natural theology which became his
book With the Grain of the Universe.

There were also times for academic politics with the change
of deans at Duke and for SH’s interesting role in aiding in the disciplinary
process for his intellectual mentor JHY after Yoder was accused of
inappropriate actions toward a number of women.
He and Paula became part of the struggling Aldersgate Methodist church
in Durham and stuck with it till a young woman minister and Duke Divinity grad
tied to introduce Willow Creek innovations to help the church grow. As of 2010 SH and his wife were part of a
liturgical Episcopalian church.

Second, some
theological and ethical reflections:

1. What is the significance of SH?

As he comes to the sunset of his life and career, SH is still
highly respected in academic and liberal Protestant and Roman Catholic church
circles for his views on narrative and pastoral theology, pacifism, etc.

If you listen to any of the SH material on youtube.com or
read the memoir you get the sense that he rather enjoys the position of being a
sort of unconventional theologian. He
likes being radical. He likes, for example, throwing out some foul language to
“shock” his audience, or saying something that might offend mainline liberals.

SH has not been what we might call a systematic
theologian. He did not write a magnum
opus like Calvin’s Institutes or a
systematic theology that will be read for centuries to come.

From a conservative, fundamentalist (traditional) Christian
perspective, the main problem is that SH seems little interested in building
his theology on the exegetical study of Scripture. He jokes that he did not really read much of
the Bible until he started teaching some basic Bible courses at Augustana. Though, he does speak as well of a growing
appreciation for the Bible and preaching later in his life. There is little discussion of Biblical
interpretation to establish pacifism (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount, Romans
13, etc.) or in trying to weigh his responsibilities to his wife (Genesis 2;
Matthew 19; 1 Corinthians 7).

This is also seen in SH’s ecclesiology. He is literally all over the map: Methodist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic,
Mennonite, and Episcopalian. He thinks
of this wide “ecumenism” positively, but it might also be interpreted as a lack
of firm understanding and commitment to the beliefs and practices represented
by each of those traditions, many of which are mutually exclusive. Surely a theologian, for example, should be
able to articulate the wide differences between Protestants and Catholics.

SH’s theology seems to be nearly completely disengaged from
confessional Christianity (though I suspect he would affirm the ecumenical
creeds). This leads to
contradictions. He is a Barthian and a
Methodist! He is a paedobaptist and an
Anabaptist!

This lack of traditional definitions, also leads him to be
unwilling to essentially identify what it means to be a Christian. After noting that he did not consider himself
a Christian even while a divinity student, by the time he becomes a theology
professor he begins to think of himself as a Christian theologian and, in
particular, as a theologian of the church.
But, again, he never defines what it means to be a Christian. Is it baptism? Is it church membership? Is it regeneration, repentance and
faith? SH is dismissive of those who
stress the creedal and confessional aspects of Christianity but he never offers
a clear alternative. He lacks boundaries
and clarity.

With regard to his preferences for worship, SH likes to
describe himself as a “high church Mennonite” meaning, I think, that he likes
liturgical worship and the simplicity of the Anabaptists. He speaks of the value of a word and
sacrament ministry. As the memoir
indicates toward the end of his life and career he did come to appreciate
“going to church” and, in particular, watching his wife “celebrate” the
Eucharist. Again, he can offer no
authoritative reasons for this that go beyond personal preferences. There is no Regulative Principle to guide his
thought and, thus, no sense that Scripture, might forbid, for example, women
serving as elders and leading in public worship.

2. What about SH’s ethics?

This is SH’s memoir and he has he admits several times it is
his telling of his story. The central
issue in the memoir is SH’s experience of begin married to Anne. This is the touchstone of the memoir. We never, of course, get to hear from Anne. SH has very little positive to say about her.

I do not mean to stand in judgment on him. The Lord alone is the Judge of all the
earth. I would not address this if he
had not addressed it publicly. I certainly would not want all my thoughts and
actions brought under public scrutiny.

Hauerwas’ description of his marriage to Anne and his divorce
from her, nonetheless, is obviously the part of his memoir which is most
troubling.

When he discusses his divorce from her he does not mention
Biblical justification for this move (and he might have marshaled some: desertion, adultery). His decision seems to be based in his personal
feelings and experience. This is
justified because she did these irrational and mean things to me and my
son. I have heard SH in lectures be
dismissive of “situation ethics” but his discussion of his divorce from his
wife can only be described as utilitarian.
He did what was best for him. He
went to counseling. If SH is influenced
by the Anabaptists, I wonder what his take is on their views of marriage,
divorce, and remarriage (in thinkers like John Coblenz). Even JHY’s wife stuck
by him when he committed adultery.

As a pastor I sometimes have to give counsel to husbands who
have to live with difficult wives (and wives who have to live with difficult
husbands). I am doing marriage
counseling right now with a young couple.
One of the questions I usually ask the man: “Let’s suppose that a year from now, your
wife is in a terrible accident and she will be paralyzed for the rest of her
life. She will be completely dependent
upon you for everything. She will not be
able to do all the things she had been able to do with and for you previously
as a wife. What will you do? Will you remain faithful to her?” The answer I am looking for from him is, “I
will remain committed to her as my wife till death parts us.” I think I might alter that question now to
ask, “What if five years into your marriage your wife has a psychotic break. She is abusive toward you, curses you out, and
cannot function in a healthy way as your companion and help-meet. What do you do?”

In the end I think there are some things we can learn from SH
and his personal story. We can admire
his work ethic and his ability to make friends.
But we can also see some warnings in his story—warning about where the
road leads when there is a lack of confessional and ecclesiological boundaries.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Note: As we have worked
our way through 2 Samuel on Lord’s Day mornings at CRBC, we have continued to
look for anticipations of Christ in the life of David. Here are some parallels I drew at the close
of last Sunday’s sermon on the parallels between David and Christ in 2 Samuel
8.

And David reigned over all Israel; and David executed judgment and justice
unto all his people (2 Samuel 8:15).

And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great
voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his
Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever (Revelation 11:15).

David subdues Israel’s enemies (vv. 1-6); Christ
subdues our enemies.

David might have wiped out all the Moabites, but he chose to
save some (v. 2); Christ might have cleared the threshing floor of us all with
his winnowing fork in this hand, but he chooses to save some [and he lays down
his own life, in the place of those who would have faced spiritual death].

David dedicated the tribute “of all nations which he subdued”
(v. 11); Jesus said, “My house shall be called of [or ‘for’] all nations a
house of prayer” (Mark 11:17). He
commissioned his disciples to go to all nations (Matt 28:19-20). He makes men and women from all nations to
bring spiritual gold and silver to lay it down at his feet as a sacrifice or
praise.

David appointed various men—including his own sons— to
positions of leadership in his kingdom (vv. 15-18); Christ has ascended on
high, having led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men (Eph 4:8). He gave apostles, prophets, and evangelists
to the early church. In these ordinary
days he has given elders and deacons, men to help in defending the truth,
administering the church, preserving the Scriptures. What is more, God has made all who are in
Jesus to be his sons, join heirs with Christ.
We are a holy nation, a kingdom of priests. We all hold the office of believer.

David ruled over a kingdom on earth with a measure of
judgment and justice (v. 15); Christ rules as King of Kings and Lord or Lords
and of his kingdom there is no end, and he shall reign for ever and ever (Rev
11:15).

Moreover, he is a perfectly righteous king. Where David failed, Christ prevailed!

Note: The digital age
is truly amazing.Codex Vaticanus has been posted online.Now, you do not
have to travel to Rome’s Vatican library to view the codex, or purchase an
expensive facsimile, or live near a library which has a facsimile.Add this to access to Codex Sinaiticus, which
has been available online for a couple of years now, and anyone can examine the
two codices that have had the biggest impact in dethroning the received text.

I began poking around the codex this morning. I had recently been interested in finding out
how Vaticanus ordered the Biblical books (both OT and NT) and what apocryphal
books it included in the OT. I had not
been able to find a complete listing in secondary sources and had not yet been
able to visit a library to look at a facsimile.
Now, I can access it with the click of a mouse.

My interest in how Vaticanus orders the OT books is related
to the development of canon in the fourth century AD (when the bulk of
Vaticanus was apparently written—some sections were obviously written and added
later [they appear in a completely different writing script which apparently
dates to c. fifteenth century] to fill in gaps in the text, which the online
version now also allows one to see in the opening of Genesis and the book of Revelation).
There was obvious fluidity in the selection of the Old Testament books and also
fluidity with the texts of those individual books. This is a factor that I do not think
advocates of the modern critical text have adequately taken into consideration
when they give such weight to Vaticanus and Sinaiticus in determining the NT
text.

Here is the list and some notes on the OT books in Vaticanus. I have not yet taken a close look at the entire text (e. g., examining additions to Esther and Daniel), so some of the info below might need to be nuanced, but here is a preliminary list.

Vaticanus Old Testament
Books List*

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Joshua

Judges

Ruth

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

1 Kings

2 Kings

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

3
Esdras (LXX 1 Esdras)

2 Esdras
(Ezra-Nehemiah)

Psalms

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Song of
Songs

Job

Wisdom

Prologue
to Ecclesiasticus

Ecclesiasticus

Esther (with additions)

Judith

Tobit

Hosea

Amos

Micah

Joel

Obadiah

Jonah

Nahum

Habbakuk

Zephaniah

Haggai

Zechariah

Malachi

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Baruch

Lamentations

Epistle
of Jeremiah

Ezekiel

Daniel (with additions)

*The titles above are taken from
standard English OT usage or from the titles supplied by the online editors (e.
g., 3 Esdras) and not necessarily as they are titled in the Vaticanus text. Apocryphal works in red.

Some Notes on the Old
Testament canonical order and content of Codex Vaticanus:

1. The opening
order: Genesis—2 Chronicles follows the
LXX order with Ruth inserted between Judges and 1 Samuel.

2. The apocryphal book
of 3 Esdras (LXX 1 Esdras) is then followed by 2 Esdras (Ezra-Nehemiah).

3. Next is the poetic
and wisdom literature from the Hebrew Bible, following the LXX order.

4. Next is the
apocryphal wisdom literature of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. Note that Ecclesiasticus is preceded by a
prologue. Note: Apocryphal Psalms of Solomon not included.

5. Next is Jewish
diaspora literature, including canonical Esther (with additions), followed by
the apocryphal books of Judith and Tobit.
Note: Apocryphal books of 1-4 Maccabees not included.

6. Next are the twelve
Minor Prophets (Hebrew Book of the Twelve) following the LXX order.

7. Finally, there are
the Major prophets. The “Jeremiah
corpus” includes the apocryphal Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. The Old Testament ends with canonical Daniel
(with additions).